Rapid Access was established in 1996 as part of the UK-headquartered Lavendon Group that operates businesses in the UK, Germany, Belgium, France and Middle East, and owns a fleet of more than 21,000 units.

Having grown in the region over the last 20 years from a single depot in the UAE to over nine depots across the GCC with more than 350 employees, Rapid is today one of the leading providers of powered access solutions in the Middle East.

The company owns the largest fleet of aerial work platforms with over 4,000 machines in the Middle East and adds more each year to support the growing demands of safe work at height in the region. Alongside the rental and sales of aerial work platforms, it is one of the few suppliers to provide internationally developed training courses from safety bodies including IPAF, PASMA and Highfield. In 2016, Rapid contributed to the issuance of 60% of all IPAF operator licenses in the region.

The current head of the regional operation is Paul Rankin, now Managing Director since March 2014. Prior to his appointment, Rankin spent 10 years working with Johnson Controls where he served as Regional Executive Director and was responsible for the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait markets.

Under Rankin’s leadership, Rapid has seen tremendous growth in KSA and UAE. It is currently set to increase its fleet size in Qatar in response to the growing demand associated with the Doha Metro and various World Cup 2022 related projects. In years to come, Rankin also expects to see the AWP industry develop considerably in other parts of Middle East and Africa.

Supporting the region’s developing health and safety culture, Rapid Access is one of the companies at the cutting edge of industry best practice, and is continuously delivering new products and services.

Rapid Access is the only supplier of the Lavendon Group’s BlueSky safety solutions for work at height. Thanks to the recent mandate from Saudi Aramco for the use of secondary guarding in all its projects in KSA, there has been a massive spike in demand for SkySiren and SkySentry.

The company is now trialling its latest product, SkySiren PCS, on several sites in the UAE and is set to launch it later in 2017.